Why Google is a great ISP

Google has announced the Google Fiber project in February 2010. After a competitive selection, Kansas City was selected from a thousand candidates for the experiment, yesterday tariff plans and connection conditions were announced for it. Google offers Gigabit Internet via fiber to an apartment for $ 70 per month, and 5 Mbit / s basic access - without a subscription fee, the user pays only for the connection.

Over the past two years, the company has spent a lot of effort on optimizing project costs, and due to various tricks, even such a business model is profitable for Google. Although the company honestly declares that it is engaged in laying fiber into apartments not for money, but to help the main Internet business.

Some people may fear that Google has so much user data, and here the company will also control the transmission channel, but from the point of view of the ordinary man in the street, Google seems to be the ideal Internet service provider. Its conditions are an order of magnitude more attractive than those of the current telecoms that are lingering .

Why does Google seem to be the perfect provider?
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1. Net neutrality . Google has always consistently advocated respecting the principles of network neutrality for fixed-line providers. Moreover, the company was the main apologist for these principles, so it’s completely impossible to imagine that Google would suddenly begin to restrict the traffic of competitors of its Youtube video service. Already, the Fiber TV package is hosting Netflix video service, which theoretically can be considered a competitor to Youtube.

2. No traffic restrictions . The so-called “unlimited” tariffs for other providers almost always have a maximum limit, for example, 500 GB per month, after which the subscriber can slow down or completely disconnect from the network. There is nothing similar in Google Fiber and the company categorically rejects such restrictions.

3. Network services . Now each subscriber receives a free Google Drive cloud storage for 1 terabyte. Most likely, in the future there will be other "goodies" for users.

4. Tablet Nexus 7 as a remote control for the TV . Google’s “free” accessories are a nice bonus to Fiber subscribers. So far, the tablet serves as a remote control, but probably under Android will be developed new system utilities that fit perfectly into the integrated software and hardware infrastructure of Google.

Google has done an amazing job of optimizing the cost of network deployment, and was able to achieve savings at every stage: starting with cable in the city through power lines, and ending with connecting the device in the user's apartment (QR codes with automatic registration on Google Play).

Additional savings are achieved through the development of our own equipment (routers, digital set-top boxes), as well as due to the massive connection of quarters, which minimizes the number of specialist visits. In order to provide a mass connection, a viral campaign was invented - a competition between districts with agitation by neighbors. Which area will show the largest number of preliminary registrations, that will be connected first of all, immediately after September 9th. Secondly, for mass, a “free tariff plan” of 5 Mbit / s was introduced without a subscription fee, but with a connection fee of $ 300, which completely pays for Google’s subscriber connection costs, but at the same time minimizes the number of specialist visits to this area in the future.

By providing such tariffs at 1 Gb / s and at the same time working at a profit, Google gives a specific signal to the existing American ISP, such as Comcast and AT & T. Although Fiber is only available in one city, users across the country may wonder: why does Google provide speeds up to 100 times faster than my Comcast for the same price? Why does Comcast have the same gigabit 60-70 times more expensive? The situation is similar to the one when free Gmail came out with a 1 gigabyte mailbox, while everyone else gave only 5-10 megabytes and swore that there was no technical possibility to increase the size of the mailbox. After the advent of Gmail, the technical opportunity was immediately found for everyone.

The emergence of Google Fiber can lead to a revolutionary transformation of the ISP industry, which is almost frozen in its development.



via ExtremeTech , GigaOM